It was only a matter of time before concrete evidence revealed that Trump supporters had managed to profit off of the resistance to his presidency.
Raw Story was alerted by the parody Twitter account @AltCyberCommand that another user, @z3dster, had revealed in a viral thread that although the now-deleted @Resistance_Feed account appeared to be of similar ilk to others in the so-called "resistance," a simple search for the website's owner reveals a much more insidious web.
"Fun story," the user's thread began, linking to a screenshot of @Resistance_Feed's account that had over 33,000 followers by the time they deactivated. Though their website, ResistanceFeed.net (which was still up at time of writing) looked relatively normal, a whois searched revealed the owner's email is "americafirstera@gmail.com."
"Americafirstera seems like an odd name choice for a pro Resistance site," the user rightfully noted. That email, they noted, led them to the website AmericaFirstEra.com — a site whose layout and design are almost identical to Resistance Feed's, but on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
When searching the whois for America First Era, the user found that the website was registered to someone named Michael Maday — a man who registered a pro-Trump political action committee under the America First Era name with the Federal Elections Commission, and allegedly runs @The_Trump_Train's Twitter account.
After @z3dster first began the thread linking Resistance Feed to America First Era/Maday, another user tweeted that they'd been direct messaged by @Resistance_Feed asking for a donation.
Soon, yet another user revealed that @Resistance_Feed's donation solicitations typically linked to a PayPal link that sent the proceeds to "Maday Media."
@The_Trump_Train has more than 191,000 followers, and as recently as a few hours before press time was also selling Trump merchandise.
UPDATE 8:30 PM EST:
Shortly after Raw Story published this article, @Resistance_Feed reinstated their Twitter account and accused the company of being "Russian trolls." A few minutes later, the account disappeared again.
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UPDATE 10:45 PM EST
The website alluded to here: https://resistancefeed.net is down with a 404 error. Alt US Cyber Command also noted
